


Unbreaking Family

by MerryArwen (lalaietha)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/MerryArwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And [Sean] thought, <i>Why didn't I know?</i> and then thought maybe, maybe he hadn't given Aaron his new cell number, since he moved - but he knew Aaron had the landline, and so there was something brutal about the way he got back to the condo and the light that would tell him he had voicemail wasn't on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbreaking Family

**Author's Note:**

> Post-"100"/"Slave to Duty"; canon appears to have forgotten that Hotch has a brother, so I went looking for him.

Aaron's new house has absolutely no personality on the outside yet. Sean parks his car by the curb, to keep from blocking the driveway. It's just a house. Nice paint job, relatively new, pretty spacious, plain lawn, a few perennial bushes, mailbox, whatever. The backyard might look a little more like a home; that would be where Jack's toys were, if they were out.

Everything else about it is exactly like Sean's big brother when he's fucked up: spotless, formal, unremarkable in efficiency, all that good stuff. Another face in a suit, hiding behind its anonymity and assumptions, so that to look at him, you'd think he was a robot.

Sean knows the Pinto, his own boots and the leather jacket, everything about him, stands in stark contrast to the story of the house. But they always were something right out of a - what the hell had Mom always called it? Tale-told-twice? Something like a cliche, but bigger, because it was the whole story, all of it.

He leans head against his fist for a minute. It's, what, five? He can sit in the car, or he can go sit on the front step - and he's not sure what it is that tells him that the front step gives Aaron less possible chance to panic at a strange car in his driveway.

****

He found out by way of the news, coming back from a fishing trip. The radio told him part of it, his buddy's iPhone told him the rest, after Sean said, _Jesus fucking Christ that's my brother_ and Martin handed the little black thing to him, wordless, after the radio's details were useless.

And he thought, _Why didn't I know?_ and then thought maybe, maybe he hadn't given Aaron his new cell number, since he moved - but he knew Aaron had the landline, and so there was something brutal about the way he got back to the condo and the light that would tell him he had voicemail wasn't on.

Five minutes later, he had to walk downstairs to ask his ER-nurse neighbour if she'd just do him the favour of supergluing the gash on his knuckles closed, because the wall didn't win, but it put up a hell of a fight.

He spent all of twenty-four hours in a vicious, betrayed rage, before the brutal absurdity of it caught up with him and blew that fire right out and left him empty and cold. He knew the family was broken - his, theirs, his and Aaron's, the one they grew up from - because, fuck, how could it not be? But he'd never realized it was this broken. This bad.

When he tried to call, Sean found out that _he_ didn't know _Aaron's_ cell, and that the number he had for his older brother gave him a dead end.

****

It wasn't like he couldn't find Aaron if he wanted to. The BAU, still running out of Quantico, and if he knew his brother, Aaron was still in it. He could call there. Hell, Sean could just show up there. It wasn't like he hadn't done it before.

He just didn't want to do that. This wasn't a work thing. There was too much of that damn job in this anyway.

Sean spent four days trying to remember what the fuck Haley's sister's name was, and when he remembered it, he hoped there weren't _that_ many _J. Brooks_ in the phonebook - or that there was at least one.

And he cornered his boss and said, "I need more time off." And then when the boss started to bluster, he said, "My sister-in-law just got murdered by a serial-killer. I need to go see my brother."

It was kind of petty. He knew that. It combined taking out some of the anger at this - at everything - with getting a punch in at a man who annoyed him (however much he loved the job) and getting away with it. He acknowledged all of that, and still liked the slow loss of colour in his boss's face, when the man realized he was deadly serious, and how fast the calendar came out, to mark out the days.

Sean took three weeks. Some time to drive, and then, depending - well, he might need them. And if he didn't, he could use them to try and pick up the pieces of him he was trying to hold together on this.

Or he could always come back to work early.

****

Sean drove so he'd have time to think.

No, that wasn't true. He drove so he'd have time to think the same thing over and over again, the thing his brain knew, and he needed his - well, his emotions to believe, and that was that this wasn't about him. None of this was about Sean Hotchner.

This was about Aaron, how Aaron's brain worked, how it didn't work, and what it did when something came along that knocked him down. It was about Aaron's need to be in control, it was about Aaron's need to take care of people, and Aaron's complete failure at ever being the one taken care of.

It was about Aaron not knowing what to do with a little brother, right now, and the way Aaron's brain could put the things he didn't know what to do with in a little box, because there was the Sean in his head, and the Sean in his head was something he put himself between Sean and the world (Dad - they never talked about it, and that was probably part of it, _but let's just be honest with ourselves now, Sean,_ he thought to himself, _between me and Dad_) for, the Sean in his head needed him.

Aaron was shit at needing people. Aaron was especially shit at needing people who weren't Haley, who didn't fit neatly into the one and only slot Aaron had in his head where someone could get that close to him and still be safe. Aaron was _needed_, stood in martyrdom for the whole damn world, a latter day Jesus Christ taking every blow, as much as he could, for everyone around him.

And now Haley was dead, because Aaron couldn't stand between her and the rabid thing that killed her. Which meant the last thing that Aaron would decide to do was call Sean, call the other person it was his job to stand in harm's way for, because that's how Aaron worked.

It was funny. He'd always been the one to do that - and Sean thinks, probably, that he, himself, Sean, is the one who can look at things and go _sometimes you lose._

Watching your big brother dress to hide his bruises'll do that for you.

****

It turns out there's a lot of J.Brooks in the phonebook. Sean phones them all, and none of them are Jessica, none of them are Haley's sister, but one of them's Haley's _cousin_, and he gives Sean Jessica's number. When he calls her, he plays like he's the forgetful prodigal who just happens to have lost his address book (which she'll read as "never keeps track of these things" and he's okay with that); after he proves who he is to her, she gives him Aaron's number and address.

And here he is.

He probably should have called first, and he knows that - it's better, in the way that there are rules for this kind of thing, but honestly, this is going to be hard enough here: the phone would just add awkwardness, and a hanging sword over it all.

He sits on the porch in full view and makes pretty damn sure that he looks like himself; when Aaron does drive up, he can see Sean just fine the whole way up the drive, so even if he did get a jolt from the strange car, it's gone by the time he parks and gets Jack out of the car-seat in the back.

Sean's nephew charges across the distance between car and Sean with a shout of _Uncle Sean!_ that ends in a flung, unselfconscious four-year-old hug. Sean gives him a hair-ruffle and then stands up with him, and he and Aaron prepare to lie to each other for a bit, to keep the kid literally held between them happy.

"This is unexpected," Aaron says, and Sean gives an easy shrug.

"I know," he says, "and I can hit a hotel-room if you're not set up for me, I was just in the area figured Jack could use a visit."

"Can we play water-fight?" Jack asks, immediately, demonstrating that four-year-olds have really good memories, even of stuff that happened when they were three.

"Sure, buddy," Sean says, and Aaron says, "As long as you don't mind an air-mattress - I-we're not unpacked."

"Flat surface and a blanket and I'm happy," Sean says, and then wants to take it back: he didn't actually mean to make a reference to all the nights he spent sleeping on the floor in Aaron's room.

"Can we have McDonald's for supper?" Jack asks, clearly sensing that this is a day to get his way, but Sean laughs.

"How about you help Uncle Sean cook something really good instead? We can make super-hero shapes."

Because he knows his brother, really, and he's willing to bet his entire career that Aaron's been carefully making sure Jack's eating everything healthy and balanced his dad can get down his throat, and feeding himself crap whenever he has a minute.

Worst comes to worst, Sean's leaving a fucking freezer full of actual meals.

****

Supper ends up being hamburgers with the patties cut into whatever shape Jack wants, with a leaning tower of string-beans and carrots which apparently taste much, much better when you make a fort out of them. Sean goes for kid-diversion over complexity of taste, but Aaron eats anyway, with the quiet speed of someone who has, in fact, skipped all the rest of the day's meals.

Then there is a brief round of water-fight, before bath and then a brief round of super-hero-capes-made-out-of-towels before Jack settles onto the couch in pajamas and the remote in his hand.

Sean's not quite ready for the fact that the movie he turns on is one of him and his mom, apparently made when they were in protective custody, meant for Aaron. He's managed to keep his focus so far on his brother, and then on his nephew: this hits him in the face with the fact that his sister-in-law is dead, that Haley's dead. Sean has to get up and go splash really hot, then really cold water on his face.

Jack talks a bedtime story out of Daddy _and_ Uncle Sean. Because it is a day for getting his way. Uncle Sean goes first, before he goes down to the half-unpacked living-room to wait until Daddy's story, and tucking in, are done.

****

The first word out of Aaron's mouth when he comes downstairs is, "Sean, I'm - " which Sean isn't interested in hearing.

"Shut up," he says, light. "It's fine. I get it."

Aaron shakes his head, because it's Aaron. "It's not fine," he says, "I should have - "

At which point Sean launches a small pillow off the couch at Aaron's head, so that his big brother has to stop himself to catch it, so that Sean can say, "I said shut up, Aaron. This may come as a shock to you, but I actually get you. That's why I didn't call first; you didn't need to stew on this all day."

Aaron's not good at apologies - or, better, Aaron's good at apologies, but he's never good at what comes next, because the imprint says you get hit even if you apologize, you just maybe get hit less hard. It's almost enough to make Sean light-headed with realizing everything at once, everything that's been wrong with them for ages, and he's caught between wondering if this kind of revelation is what Aaron feels like at his job _all the time_, and the kicked-in-the-chest feeling of realizing that it took Haley being fucking murdered to get them here.

And that he's never going to get a Christmas-card, with a Christmas-letter, with the personalized bit this tiny, gentle guilt-trip about not visiting or calling more often again.

Aaron's staring at the wall; Sean rescues him by nodding up the stairs and asking, "How is he?" because Jack fits into the pattern of the world Aaron can lean on, still.

Aaron sits down, finally. He says, "He's four. He still asks me when she's coming home. I don't think he understands yet." It has the sound of a rote formula, which means a lot of people have asked him.

"Okay," Sean says. "How are you?" Which is almost a dick question, but isn't. It's a way of telling Aaron he's not going anywhere.

Aaron's answer is leaning forward with his face in his hands, not words, which is actually all Sean was looking for, so he goes on, "I've got three weeks. Give me a general idea of where shit goes and I can get you unpacked and well set up. You still at work?"

"Yes," Aaron replies: he looks like he's about to apologize for _that_ and then lets it go. "Jack has preschool in the mornings, and he spends the afternoons with Jess."

"Yeah, she said," Sean tells him, and adds immediately, at the sudden focus, "How the hell else was I supposed to find you, Aaron? Trust me, she gave me the third degree to figure out I was who I said I was first." Including stuff I don't think you realize Haley told her, he _doesn't_ say, because if Haley's sister and Haley's ex-husband have figured out how to work together for Haley's kid over Haley's grave, Sean is not, _not_ going to be the one to fuck it up.

They have a conversation that isn't in words, then: it's in Aaron obviously trying to decide if he can get Sean to go away, and Sean putting all of the stubborn he possibly can in his face back, until his brother looks away first. "She maybe could use some help; I don't know."

"You have a deep-freeze yet?" Sean asks. "If you don't, you're getting one, and I'm going to fill it for you. I cook, Aaron," he says, at his brother's look. "It's what I do. There's stuff that freezes really well, and that'll keep frozen for two years or more. How many times have _you_ \- not Jack, _you_ \- eaten properly in the last two weeks?"

It makes for another conversation without words, and eventually Aaron breaks it again, and shakes his head, and says, in a very tired, very self-mocking voice, "You're as bad as me."

"I had a good teacher," Sean replies. "Show me the air-mattress, I'll let you get some sleep. Jack have any food allergies show up yet?"

They're not a hugging family. Not yet. Maybe later.


End file.
